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CenturyLink, one of the nation’s largest Internet service providers, is filing a lawsuit challenging the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) net neutrality order. CenturyLink’s lawsuit is the seventh such legal challenge since the commission voted to regulate and reclassify the Internet as a utility in February. Target Wasn ...

The 2015 edition of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's (CEI) Ten Thousand Commandments reveals the tremendous, growing “hidden tax” of America’s regulatory state. The report indicates a $1.88 trillion hit to Americans consumers and the U.S. economy in 2014 due to federal regulations and intervention. The report analyzes the ...

New York State financial regulators are crafting a framework for placing cryptocurrency processing companies under government supervision. Under the new policy, companies transmitting bitcoin payments on behalf of customers would be required to obtain government licenses and operate under traditional government financial regulations ...

Responding to the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) assertion of regulatory power over the Internet, congressional lawmakers have submitted a bill that would halt FCC’s 400-page “net neutrality” regulations before they are implemented and would prevent future regulators from granting themselves similar authority. Reps. Marsha ...

Patent abuse is harming the U.S. economy. It interferes with market competition, stymies entrepreneurs and innovators, and ultimately costs consumers in higher prices and decreased availability of products and features. Much of the debate over patent reform centers on how to make patent defense easier and less onerous for defendants ...

At the urging of President Barack Obama, Federal Communication Commission chairman Tom Wheeler and Democrats on the commission have placed the entire Internet under the control of the FCC. The FCC commissioners voted on February 26 to regulate Internet service providers (ISPs) as utility companies under the authority of Title ...

Last week House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte reintroduced the Innovation Act , a patent-reform measure that passed the House in the previous Congress 325-91 and is supported by a diverse swath of American industry, including Google, the National Retail Federation, Microsoft, and the Application Developers Alliance. The bill mirrors ...

President Barack Obama is pressing hard to expand taxpayer-funded government wireless access, calling for it in a January 14 speech in Cedar Falls, Iowa [2]and in his State of the Union address. A key component of Obama’s municipal-Wi-Fi proposal involves the federal government preventing states from stopping local governments ...

The Internet isn’t broken, and doesn’t need the government to fix it. That was my overriding message in a debate on Chicago’s PBS station WTTW Tuesday night with Illinois ACLU Executive Director Colleen K. Connell . (Watch it in the player at left.) In an excellent discussion led by “Chicago Tonight” host Phil Ponce, Connell ...

Results from a comprehensive study of how American cities and states tax the growing wireless telecommunications industry, released last month by the non-partisan Tax Foundation, suggest the growing need for reforming how government treats this important telecommunications industry. Since 2003, tax rates on the average American's ...

Instead of broadcasting an omnipresent face via telescreen, a new government program may be bringing “Big Brother” to street corners and traffic intersections near you. In September, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released a statement heralding the expansion of the Next Generation Identification System (NGIS) data network ...

A broad coalition of conservative leaders and free-market proponents has signed “An Open Letter to the United States Congress: Oppose the Marketplace and Internet Tax Fairness Act,” voicing opposition to S. 2609, the so-called Marketplace and Internet Tax Fairness Act . The leaders of seventeen organizations, representing millions ...

In September 2014, The Heartland Institute joined a growing coalition of free-market public policy institutes, signing a joint letter urging members of Congress to oppose the passage of the Marketplace and Internet Tax Fairness Act, a bill seeking to grant states the authority to levy taxes upon businesses outside their jurisdiction ...

The Federal Communications Commission this week voted 3-2 to establish new net neutrality rules that would prevent broadband networks from selectively blocking traffic, but allowing those companies to enter into deals with content providers for preferred access to their networks in “commercially reasonable” ways. Scott Cleland, policy ...

Adam Thierer asks the question, "Must the creators of new technologies seek the blessing of public officials before they develop and deploy their new innovations?" His work examines the merits of permissionless innovation and concludes that policy makers embrace and defend innovation without the need of explicit permission. ...

The D.C. Circuit Court this week struck down the Federal Communication Commission’s 2010 “ net neutrality ” rule requiring Internet service providers to treat all traffic across their networks the same – discriminating against none and favoring none. The court also, however, ruled the FCC may impose its net neutrality rule if ...

The D.C. Circuit Court today struck down the Federal Communication Commission’s 2010 “net neutrality” rule requiring Internet service providers to treat all traffic across their networks the same – discriminating against none and favoring none. The court also, however, ruled the FCC may impose its net neutrality rule if it reclassifies ...

In this podcast, The Heartland Institute Director of Communications, Jim Lakely and Senior Policy Analyst, Matthew Glans discuss Scott Cleland 's latest paper "A Modern Vision for the FCC." Cleland is the president of Precursor, LLC, a Fortune 500 research consultancy specializing in the future of Internet competition, property ...

Thursday, the FCC considered issuing a proposal that seeks comment on the Commission’s rules regarding the use of mobile wireless services on board aircraft. In my view, the proposal to seek public comment should be adopted. As reported in today's Washington Post , the announcement by the FCC's new Chairman a couple of weeks ...

In this analysis of technology delivery, the authors contend that in recent years, over-the-air broadcasters have been able to exact increasingly higher fees for permitting Multichannel Video Program Distributors (“MVPDs”) , such as cable and satellite operators, to carry their TV programming. Both sides of the retransmission fee ...

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